"Pardon?"

"To cleanse the Clay?"

"I thought we'd use flamethrowers. We've some of the hew high-powered models."

"Won't that be dangerous? There's not much air in there as it is, and those things devour oxygen."

"True. But my men will be wearing breathing masks and carrying their own air supplies. Whether we bum them out or simply suffocate the bastards, it's all the same to me, as long as the job gets done. Minimal casualties, that's my prime directive."

"Maybe so, but I'd prefer it if you didn't use flamethrowers in there."

Haavikko frowned. He was happy to take generalized instructions from Ben, but if he was going to interfere in operational matters, then he might as well report back to Rheinhardt. "Why?"

Ben's eyes met his and held them. "Because I want something."

"What?"

"I want their king, the Myghtern. Alive if at all possible, but if not, well, I'd like his body at the very least, not some charred remnant."

Haavikko nodded, trying to keep the distaste he felt from showing in his face. "Are you sure?"

Ben straightened up, mock military for a moment, affecting Rheinhardt's voice with a frightening accuracy.

"That is an order, Major Haavikko."

Haavikko bowed his head. "Then I shall ensure it receives priority, sir!''

Ben walked past him, then stopped, looking up the slope of the lawn toward the cottage.Haavikko studied him a moment, trying to figure him out. "Forgive me for asking, but why do you want him?"

Ben half turned toward him. "Do you believe in vividness, Major?"

" Vividness?"

"Yes, vividness. It's the force that lies behind things. What the poet Dylan Thomas once called 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.' We can't see it, not normally, but sometimes-just sometimes, mind-it shows itself, in an event, or occasionally-very rarely-in a person. The Myghtern ... he has vividness. I saw it at a glance. And I want him, even if it's only the shell of him. The rest . . .

well, the rest I'll fill if I have to. It'll be my greatest art. To recreate him. To make him real for others."

Haavikko stared at him, astonished, wondering for a moment if it were true what they said and Ben Shepherd really was mad. Then he turned and looked back at his men, busy in the fields nearby.

What do you make of this? he wondered, his eyes traveling among the familiar faces. To be here in this valley, on this afternoon.

It was strange. Stranger than anything he'd ever known.

He let out a long breath, calming himself, forcing himself to bite the bullet, then turned, facing Ben again.

"If it makes you any happier, I'll order the men to use their flamethrowers only as a last resort."

"Good. And the Myghtern?"

"I'll send a special squad to try and capture him."

"Good. I'm delighted you've seen reason."

Haavikko hesitated. "If that's all, I think I'll go now. Please, thank your sister for the tea. It was most pleasant." He bowed, feeling suddenly awkward, as if he'd outstayed his welcome.

Ben stared at him, an unexpected hardness in his face.

Again Haavikko felt himself at a disadvantage. Sometimes it was as if Shepherd were on a whole different level from himself. As if there were things he'd misread entirely.

"We go in at dusk," he said. "I think the men should rest until then."

Ben smiled, all charm again. "Of course. And come again some time, Major Haavikko. Please, call on us again."

THEY GATHERED in the High Cross, beside the cathedral; Tak, Thorn, the five from the Above, DeVore, and two of his henchmen.

Hastings and the others were suited up-sleek, elegantly silvered suits, gusseted at the neck to take a helmet. They carried simple guns, holstered at the waist: primitive weapons, not lasers. Old models that worked on explosive principles. Thorn smiled on seeing them, knew that it was all of a pattern, deliberately old fashioned, like the valve, the electric bulbs-all of it an elaborate charade to fool the Myghtern.

They went east, out past the sewage dump at Malpas-a vast reservoir of waste, contained within the old Fal's course. Twenty U south it stretched, and each year its level grew higher: a rich soup of effluencepumped down from the City. Life swarmed on the shores of this great lake of shit. A twisted, stunted form of life, admittedly, yet life.

Map orth caugh, Thorn thought, remembering what the old man had said when he'd first come into the Clay. Pile of shit! It was a truth down here, not an insult.

They crossed the clogged tributary at Tresillian, DeVore leading the way. From there the road headed northeast between stone walls, rising and then falling sharply, the roof of the Above sometimes close, sometimes far above, but always there, enclosing everything like the lid on a giant grave. That and the utter darkness.

The road was newly surfaced. Thorn bent down and examined it, trying to pick at it, then realized what it was. Ice! They were walking on ice, the multipurpose polymer used throughout the Above!

After Grampound the road went down again and Thorn could see a glowing trail stretching away into the distance-dim but definite.

Then, as they came to it, he saw the wire fencing either side, the warning signs. Electrified cables ran the whole length of the mesh and there were guards at the gate-heavily armed Security types, blunt faced and anonymous looking.

The gates hissed back and they went inside.

"Right now our main problem is distribution," DeVore said, turning to face them all. "Eventually, however, we'll cut an entrance overhead and ship the stuff direct into the City."

Thorn listened, not sure what "the stuff precisely was, but knew that whatever it was, it wasn't legal.

Past the fence the road ran straight, newly laid, like an ancient railway track. In places it cut straight through the hillside, in others it was built up, soaring over valleys on earth embankments. All of it spoke of years of planning and execution. Two years, Tak had said. Thorn nodded to himself and walked on, hurrying now to catch the others.

At the crest of the hill they had stopped, looking down into the wide and ancient valley of Treviscoe.

Coming alongside them, Thorn gave a tiny laugh, unable to believe what he was seeing.

The building filled the center of the valley. It seemed alive, glowing a muted gold against the velvet blackness, ten levels high, each hexagonal slice smaller than the one beneath, so that it had the appearance of an ancient zigurrat.

Thorn turned, meeting Tak's eyes, then walked on, following the others out onto the great bridge of ice that linked the hill to the topmost level of the building.

THE BIRD SAT on a perch of silvered wire. In places it had shed its feathers and the sore-pocked flesh showed through its ragged plumage. It was a songbird, but it sat there quietly, its eye dull, its beak scaled with a flaky whiteness. Wires ran from the back of its skull to a unit set into the wall behind the cage.

Its cage was one of many in the room, stacked in tiers from floor to ceiling. One came down into the room from above, let down on a platform through the ceiling.

It was a silent room, filled with the sour scent of chemicals. There was something horribly unnatural in that stillness. Thorn stood beside the cage, staring in at the wasted creature.

"What's wrong with it?"DeVore turned then came across. "Ah, that one." He smiled, the light of pride in his eyes. "One of our more interesting experiments. He dreams, you know."

Thorn looked at the pitiful thing and frowned. "Dreams of what?"

DeVore consulted the computer clipboard in his hand, then answered. "That one dreams of being an eagle. A hunting bird. Of swooping on its victims and carrying them away in its talons."

From time to time the bird twitched, but that was its only movement. Its eyes were empty, it shredded wings were furled.

"It's an extension of the HeadStim principle. We feed the new information into the brain, ousting the old."

DeVore smiled then put his fingers through the bars to groom the bird. It seemed entirely unconscious of his touch. "We wanted to see how effective it was. How far into a dream state these creatures could be induced to go."

Thorn stared at him, puzzled. "How can you tell?"

DeVore smiled tightly. "Watch."

He reached beneath the cage and moved his hand across. At once the wires retracted from the bird's head and snaked back into the wall unit. The bird stumbled, then collected itself on its perch. Its eyes, previously dull, were now alert. Its head came up sharply, turning to stare at them. But that first, sharp, instinctive motion gave way to confusion. It went to open out its massive wings and found only the ragged, malformed wings of a songbird. It opened its beak to screech its hunting cry but uttered only the shrill notes of its kind.

The bird twitched, its eyes blinking rapidly. And slowly it began to tremble, its whole body shaking violently. In less than a minute it was dead.

DeVore turned, facing him. "We've found that it takes less than a week to create a situation in which the bird has lapsed totally into its new reality and cannot tolerate the old. That reaction is typical. The creatures would rather die than return to what they were. It's as if they switch themselves off."

"I see. And you plan to use this on humans one day?"

DeVore smiled, his eyes sharp. "Nothing so crude, Shih Thorn. But yes ... someday."

In his mind Thorn was adding piece to piece, evaluating all he'd seen that afternoon: bacteria that could evolve and eat away the brain-stem; chemicals that could be laced into the human bloodstream and activated by the presence of excess sugar in the blood, forming a po- tent explosive mixture; aggression drugs; acids that reacted only with calcium; and now this-this tinkering with reality in the brain itself. He could make only one thing of it all. Terrorism. A subtle, insidious form of terrorism. What they had built here in the Clay was a complex of research laboratories designed to promote the ultimate downfall of Li Yuan and the North European Enclave.

Revolution, that was what it was. A direct assault on the Families and all they stood for. Against containment and the last remnants of the City-State.

"Come. We're finished here," DeVore said, motioning that he should step back onto the platform. Thorn turned, looking about him one last time, then did as he was bid. In a moment they were back in the central room.DeVore bowed to him politely, then left to rejoin the others. As he did, Hastings came across.

"You're a strange one, Thorn, aren't you?"

Thorn shrugged. "I don't know what you mean." But it seemed that Hastings wanted to explain something to him, for when he spoke again it was in a low, confidential tone, as if he didn't want the others to hear.

"If there was any other way, I'd take it, believe me, but Li Yuan leaves us no option. The City is enough for him. Social order, that's all he seems to want. But we need more than that, don't you see that, Thorn?"

Hastings's eyes looked away, as if searching the distance. "I want what Mankind has always wanted.

New worlds. Fresh islands of being. New ways of living. I want it like . . ." His hands clenched and there was a look of pure need in his eyes, in the set of his mouth. For a moment he seemed to teeter on the edge of something, then he drew back. He laughed softly and looked at Thorn again, a wistful smile on his lips. "It seems so little to ask."

Dreams, Thorn thought. Must we always murder for our dreams? "So many years we've been trapped here, festering away in the levels of the City. For centuries now we've been dying on our feet, watching it all fall apart, piece by piece. For centuries we've shut out the stars and denied our rightful place out there. But we need to grow. We need to venture outward. It's either that or we'll die. You can see that, Thorn, can't you?"

Thorn stared back impassively. It was a pretty speech, but such dreams were dangerous, for to make such dreams come true millions, maybe tens of millions, would have to die.

"War," Thorn said. "That's what you're talking about. A War against Li Yuan."

Hastings looked back at him, his eyes pained, then nodded. "If that's what it takes."

"Well, Shih Thorn, what do you think?"

Thorn turned from contemplating the wall hanging and met DeVore's eyes. He realized they were alone.

"The others?"

"They've gone to eat. I thought we ought to talk."

"I see." Thorn licked his lips. "I've been impressed by what I've seen."

"Impressed?" DeVore echoed the word flatly, his smile fixed momentarily. "You seemed . . . well, unsurprised."

"I've heard . . ." he began, then realized what he had been about to say.

"You've heard what?"

"Nothing. It's just ..."

DeVore moved his head back slowly, as if to see him better; or like a snake, about to strike.

"You know me, don't you?"

Thorn weighed the alternatives a moment, then nodded. "First time I saw you. It's just that I wasn't sure.

I'd heard you were dead. But the rumors . . . Some said you were on Mars. Others, well, others said you'd changed your form.""And you? What did you think?"

He gambled on a lie. "I thought you'd be here. It's why I came."

DeVore's eyes held him a moment, then slipped aside. His face made a tiny shrugging motion. There was a mild amusement in his eyes now and in the corners of his mouth. "You were talking to Hastings just now. What did he say?"

Again those brown eyes met his then slid away.

"He seemed . . . concerned. He was trying to convince me of the rightness of all this."

"And you? What do you think?"

Deeper and deeper.

"I am a revolutionary. It's my trade. Up Above one cannot move for spies and secret service agents. But down here"-he let his eyes glow with a revolutionary fervor-"down here a man can be free to determine his own destiny."

"Ah . . ." DeVore's eyes were half-lidded, almost saurian in their sleepy watchfulness. His smile was the smile of an alligator crouched in his pool, waiting for his prey to come to him.

Thorn saw that look and laughed disarmingly. "I bet you hear a lot of such claptrap! The truth is, I can see the advantage of change. Unlike Hastings, I consider myself a realist ... an opportunist."

DeVore considered that, then nodded, as if some test had been passed, some barrier cleared.

"Hastings is a good man," he said, placing his arm about Thorn's shoulders. "Unfortunately he has a conscience. And that's an uncomfortable thing to have, don't you think, a conscience?"